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FireMon Security Manager vs Fortinet FortiGate Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortinet FortiGate Cloud
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 16.6%, up from 16.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate Cloud is 4.9%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ganesh-Khutwad - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid policy insights with robust dashboards and cross-vendor automation
FireMon Security Manager is excellent for real-time compliance management. It allows us to quickly retrieve any policy needed for testing and easily analyze it for loopholes. If a loophole exists, FireMon provides comprehensive details within the policy manager. It alerts us to firewall rule additions or changes that violate compliance policies. It supports various firewall platforms, including Checkpoint, Zscaler, Fortinet, Cisco, and AWS, and provides centralized management for all configured policies through a single console. FireMon Security Manager provides many features, like whether my firewall is compatible with required standards such as NTP and SNMP. Each compliance included in our RFPs is shown in the UI of FireMon. It gives robust and clear dashboards, making it easier to understand risks because the policies have ratings showing usage, and the number of hit attacks. It streamlines our compliance reporting processes by providing comprehensive risk and compliance assessments. It offers a range of features, including verification of firewall compatibility with protocols like NTP and SNMP, and detection of signal charges. FireMon effectively addresses all compliance requirements outlined in our RFPs. For instance, it can determine if firewalls or proxies within a stack are configured in Secure Mode or Active-Active mode. FireMon Security Manager enables us to generate reports on all these aspects, ensuring thorough compliance monitoring and documentation. FireMon Security Manager is robust and can help automate firewall policy changes across large multi-vendor enterprise environments. FireMon Security Manager helps automate firewall policy changes across various environments, including on-premises, cloud, hybrid, SASE, and SD-WAN. It also simplifies cleaning up firewall rules in our environment. The time required to accurately create, approve, and deploy firewall policy rules has been reduced. Tasks that took 30 minutes can now be completed in just five minutes using FireMon. FireMon provides immediate visibility into our policies through a robust and clear dashboard, making it easy to identify errors or misconfigurations based on the policy rating.
IgnitiusMolepo - PeerSpot reviewer
The hub-and-spoke setup is useful because I can manage security from where I am, while the IT engineers in branch offices can handle it on their end.
When we're upgrading, it's sometimes quite challenging, especially firmware. We usually don't upgrade unless we have a bug, and we still feel it's not safe to react instead of being proactive. We often have some delays when updating FortiGuard, too. Nevertheless, I believe that it's okay most of the time with proper management. We also run into some problems using FortiGate as a UTM solution. I feel like maybe they're not giving me a full view of the other components that they have in that box. Their box has some DDoS defense, but I need complete DDoS protection. I must not have light DDoS protection on other UTM boxes because if I'm uncertain about the security posture, it will compromise me. We like having everything in one box because running multiple boxes eats up more resources on the computing level. We need a total solution, not half-half.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It gives us the ability to go to one place to look for potential firewall rules that are inappropriate, or which don't meet compliance. Instead of manually searching hundreds of firewalls for a policy, we can go to this one location and find the rules which are now out of compliance."
"The most valuable feature for me is its capability for cleanup and managing the complexity of security products."
"Policy test, access path analysis, and change reports."
"The SQL language is convenient to use. It allows us to process a bunch of criteria very quickly and narrows things down if there is an issue with the firewall. It's easy to do that with SQL queries."
"It provides us with a single pane of glass for our on-prem environment, to see configuration. We have not implemented into the cloud yet. We can search for an object group and see where it lives on any firewall in the enterprise or find security rules, no matter what firewall they're on."
"The unused objects is another nice feature, where it digs a little bit deeper into comparing the logs that it sees versus the configurations that it sees... The unused objects feature will go through in a pretty detailed way and show us which ones aren't being used. Or, if they are used, it will show us how often they're used."
"When it comes to real-time compliance management, it is very good because it is able to compare changes in the configuration as well as giving us a timestamp. It also sends email alerts to our environment so we know if someone has made a change on the network. It gives us the whole picture of that change. Whether it is a configuration change or just a small comment, it gives us the before and after snapshot."
"The automation that the platform provides to create tickets reduces human error and more generally, reduces the operational overhead."
"Fortinet's documentation and support are commendable, providing valuable assistance whenever challenges arise, and ensuring seamless operations."
"The solution is quite stable. I haven't had issues with it crashing on me. I don't recall running into any bugs or glitches. It's very reliable so far."
"Fortinet products are just as good as any other competitor, with better management capabilities."
"We like the availability of the hardware and the service that we get from FortiGate, as well as the kind of reach that they have as a part of their sales folks."
"The solution responds more quickly to attacks or issues in the field."
"One firewall box can contain various top-of-the-line services that are packaged together for easy administration."
"The platform is scalable."
"It's user-friendly."
 

Cons

"The stability has been fairly decent, but there have been a few issues. My coworker has had some issues in the past where he has had to work with support."
"Sometimes, there is a problem related to the sizing itself. If we have many devices added or if the firewall complexity is huge, we might experience some lag in processing. It may relate to the hardware specifications."
"The AWS integration is still not mature for us to use. It is just not ready for our use case for AWS connectivity. Therefore, it does not provide us with a single pane of glass for our cloud environments, because we can't manage our cloud environment with the tool."
"It comes as a Linux appliance on a server and we're not a Linux shop, we're more of a Windows shop. It would be great if they could automate or integrate the backups into it and other things through their GUI interface, just to make the management of Linux a little more transparent."
"FireMon could be easier to use and flexibility regarding reporting could be improved."
"When it comes to documentation, they need to start putting together a basic command manual. With Cisco, you can look up a command and it gives you examples of three or four different ways that command can be used. It tells you how to put it into the GUI and the CLI. FireMon does need to start doing that."
"The support response time has room for improvement."
"Some of the things that you want to do in FireMon are not exactly straightforward, like creating certain reports or controls. Some of the functions could be a little more user-friendly, such as creating certain filters."
"When we're upgrading, it's sometimes quite challenging, especially firmware. We usually don't upgrade unless we have a bug, and we still feel it's not safe to react instead of being proactive. We often have some delays when updating FortiGuard, too."
"The solution should allow users to keep the data for longer than the current periods. I can't get any historic data after more than a month. I would like to be able to, after a year, look for trends from the past 12 months. It would make things much easier."
"The SSL visibility could be better."
"Fortinet could improve FortiGate Cloud by providing better integration with third-party applications and features."
"The console or demonstration tool could be more user friendly."
"Lacks some security against external attacks."
"I would like to see a SIEM bundled together with this because customers are looking into better reporting and more proactive security solutions."
"Improving the platform's intuitiveness and consolidating functionalities, such as reporting and firewall features, could enhance user experience and reduce the need for multiple product purchases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"Its pricing is good. Compared to others, it is not so expensive."
"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."
"Relative to what it offers, the price is fair."
"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."
"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."
"The product cost varies based on company budgets, but for us, it's reasonably priced considering the value it provides."
"The tool's pricing is fair. I rate it a six out of ten. You don't have to pay any additional costs."
"The price is over $1,000 USD annually."
"Unlike other firewalls, the cost of Fortinet FortiGate is low, and the functionality is nearly identical, which is why we chose it."
"The price of the solution is high compare to competitors."
"We pay around $19,000 a year and do not pay for extra technical support."
"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for Fortinet FortiGate Cloud."
"The costs are reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FireMon?
I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
Comparatively, FireMon has a very good price and is below the general competition in cost. I have not seen any additional fees beyond the general contract fees for the usage I have. So, I have not ...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
For one company I work with, I use Fortinet, and FireMon is not able to understand the zones that Fortinet uses. Part of that compliance piece does not provide me with the necessary information. An...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate Cloud?
Fortinet FortiGate Cloud has valuable firewall, SSL VPN, and web filtering features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate Cloud?
I am very satisfied with the price and licensing cost of Fortinet FortiGate Cloud, rating it an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiGate Cloud?
Some reports generated from Fortinet FortiGate Cloud are very organizational. It would be beneficial to allow the customers customization of reports. This customization would enable organizations t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
FortiCloud, FortiGate Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about FireMon Security Manager vs. Fortinet FortiGate Cloud and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.